This invention relates to skateboards, and more particularly to a skateboard with an accessory to assist in keeping a rider in contact with and in control of the skateboard during airborne maneuvers and thereby provide increased control, balance and safety.
A skateboard rider normally has no good way to ensure remaining in contact with the skateboard once both the rider and board are airborne. This posed the obvious danger of injury from a faulty landing, as well as limiting the amount of balance and control that the rider has.
Moreover, in the "Ollie" maneuver, or jump from a surface, the skateboarder shifts his weight strongly to the rear of the board while using friction and his front foot to urge the front of the skateboard upward while staying in contact with it. Once airborne, the rider attempts to return the attitude of the board to level and to get his body's center of gravity back over the skateboard to return to a state of balance and control.
Some riders use the "Ollie" maneuver to jump curbs or just to jump, while much more advanced riders use it to jump over or jump onto much higher objects. Extremely advanced stunt artists even use an "Ollie" maneuver to jump onto a metal railing or bike rack, where they then perform additional maneuvers, such as balancing, sliding, teeter-tottering or "grinding", before sliding or jumping off the structure that they were on.
The main difficulty encountered in performing "Ollie" and other airborne maneuvers is that it is hard to control the skateboard and keep it in contact with the rider's feet. Skateboard riders have been known to experiment and improvise in their efforts to solve this problem. One approach is to crouch and grab one rail of the skateboard and hold onto it to keep it in contact with the feet while the rider performs his airborne maneuver in a crouch. However, it is difficult to jump while crouching, and holding the rail puts the rider off balance and exposes his fingers to injury during some types of maneuvers. If the jump is performed first and the bending to grab the rail second, any stabilization that is achieved only occurs late in the maneuver, after the hard part, i.e., gaining altitude, has already been accomplished.
Another approach that has been tried is for the skateboard rider to place a bicycle inner tube under his board, wrap one hand around the inner tube and, by pulling up on the inner tube as a jumping motion is initiated, try to hold the skateboard firmly against his feet as he is airborne.
While this approach is somewhat successful, it suffers from several drawbacks. If pressure is released, the inner tube can move about, become awkwardly displaced and even get tangled in the wheels of the skateboard and the rider's legs, thereby causing an accident. Moreover, maintaining constant pressure is inconvenient and impairs the rider's ability to perform many maneuvers. Even with constant pressure, the inner tube tends to slip around and not be in an optimum position for its intended purpose.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,400 to Santini for a "Scooter Board" discloses a skateboard-like vehicle with "A weight supporting, height adjustable and removable vertical upright assembly" centrally attached to the platform of the vehicle. This assembly includes a horizontal handle disposed transverse to the long axis of the vehicle along which the vehicle moves. U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,971 to Phillips for a "Ride-On Vehicle" discloses a somewhat similar vehicle with a vertical control stick of rigid material.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,179,134 to Atkinson for a "Removable Trainer Handle and Brake for Skateboard " discloses a removable handle and brake apparatus for attachment to the front end of a skate board with a clamp.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,289,325 to Whitacre for a "Skateboard" discloses a skateboard with an extra long front end to which is attached a rope and handle. The long front end and rope and handle permit easier control of turning for beginners and for low speed navigation of a slalom coarse.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,825 to Allen et al for a "Skateboard" discloses a skateboard enhanced with a retractable flexible cord passing through a hole in the center of the skateboard and attached to a retracting mechanism under the board. When fully extended, the retractable flexible cord can be used to hold the skateboard to the rider's feet while performing maneuvers.
There are, however, some disadvantages to the apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,887,825. One such disadvantage is that the handle remains on the top of the skateboard and in the way when it is not in use, limiting the type of maneuvers that can be performed. Also, the cord must remain fully extended to be ready for immediate use, and maintaining that pressure against the force of the retraction mechanism is inconvenient and also impairs the ability to perform many maneuvers. The retraction mechanism also adds to the weight of skateboard. With the high percentage of time that some advanced modern skateboarders spend doing jumps and other airborne maneuvers, adding any more weight than necessary is highly undesirable.
Another disadvantage of this approach is that the retraction mechanism and cord are disposed under the skateboard in a region between the two sets of wheels that the most advanced riders use when they have landed on top of other objects, such as the metal railings and bike racks mentioned above, and are engaged in balancing, sliding, teeter-tottering or "grinding" maneuvers.
What is desired is a readily disconnectable and light weight accessory for skateboards that provides the rider with a means of staying in contact and control of his skateboard while performing freestyle and airborne maneuvers, and yet does not protrude from, or take up space on, the bottom surface of the skateboard between the wheels where it interferes with balancing, sliding, teeter-tottering or other maneuvers atop objects, and which, when disconnected, does not take up any room on top of the skateboard either.